After many years of neglect in Poland in the area of broadly defined maritime policy, with a great deal of hope we are noticing the first signs of revival in the maritime construction field, and in the geotechnical engineering in particular. It coincides with the enlargement of the Department of Geotechnics under the expanded name of the Department of Geotechnics, Geology and Maritime Engineering (GGME) in the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Gdansk University of Technology.
At the request of the Board of Directors of the Polish Geotechnics Committee (PKG) and thanks to the special efforts of its President, Prof. Zbigniew Młynarek, and of its Honorary President, Prof. Eugeniusz Dembicki, decision to grant the organization of the 11th Baltic Sea Geotechnical Conference was made by the Presidents of the International Society of Soil Mechanics and Geotechnical Engineering (ISSMGE), its President Prof. Pedro Seco e Pinto and the vice President for Europe Prof. Roger Frank. This prestigious choice of GGME as the organizer of the conference, under the leadership of Prof. Zbigniew Sikora, its chair, was justified not only from a formal point of view, but also from historical considerations, because the first Conference of Soil Mechanics and Foundations of the Baltic Countries was organized in Gdańsk in 1975 from the inspiration of Prof. E. Dembicki, chairman of the Geotechnical Department at that time.
The 11th Baltic Sea Geotechnical Conference on the topic „Geotechnics in Maritime Engineering” was held on the 15-18 of September 2008 in Gdansk under the auspices of ISSMGE, PKG and the Gdansk University of Technology.
Photo. 1. The Southern Courtyard of the Gdansk Technical University with the conference participants, see also www.11bc.pg.gda.pl. Photo Dr. R. Ossowski
The proceedings were held at the university in the historical Aula lecture hall and the adjacent modern teaching rooms together with the Southern Courtyard (see photo 1), and the New Auditorium lecture hall (photo 3).
Almost 280 participants from 30 countries participated in the conference, including from Poland (138), Germany (33), Estonia (13), the Netherlands (10). There were participants from the USA, Japan, Brazil, and many other countries, not only from the Baltic countries. This worldwide interest was dictated mainly by the aptly selected subject matter for the conference. The lead theme of the proceedings was applying geotechnical solutions in the maritime construction. World-class experts in the fields of geotechnical and maritime building engineering, representing both the theoretical, as well as the practical fields, were present at the conference. There were scientists dealing with geotechnical problems of ports, offshore and onshore structures, young scientists – doctoral students, as well as practising engineers, dealing with the design and the execution of objects of the maritime infrastructure.
Download ISSMGE Bulletin – Volume 2 Issue 4 (pp. 17-18)
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